CHAPTER XL

Valancy paused a moment on the porch of the brick house in Elm Street. She felt that she ought to knock like a stranger. Her rosebush, she idly noticed, was loaded with buds. The rubber-plant stood beside the prim door. A momentary horror overcame her—a horror of the existence to which she was returning. Then she opened the door and walked in.

“I wonder if the Prodigal Son ever felt really at home again,” she thought.

Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles were in the sitting-room. Uncle Benjamin was there, too. They looked blankly at Valancy, realising at once that something was wrong. This was not the saucy, impudent thing who had laughed at them in this very room last summer. This was a grey-faced woman with the eyes of a creature who had been stricken by a mortal blow.

Valancy looked indifferently around the room. She had changed so much—and it had changed so little. The same pictures hung on the walls. The little orphan who knelt at her never-finished prayer by the bed whereon reposed the black kitten that never grew up into a cat. The grey “steel engraving” of Quatre Bras, where the British regiment forever stood at bay. The crayon enlargement of the boyish father she had never known. There they all hung in the same places. The green cascade of “Wandering Jew” still tumbled out of the old granite saucepan on the window-stand. The same elaborate, never-used pitcher stood at the same angle on the sideboard shelf. The blue and gilt vases that had been among her mother’s wedding-presents still primly adorned the mantelpiece, flanking the china clock of berosed and besprayed ware that never went. The chairs in exactly the same places. Her mother and Cousin Stickles, likewise unchanged, regarding her with stony unwelcome.

Valancy had to speak first.

“I’ve come home, Mother,” she said tiredly.

“So I see.” Mrs. Frederick’s voice was very icy. She had resigned herself to Valancy’s desertion. She had almost succeeded in forgetting there was a Valancy. She had rearranged and organised her systematic life without any reference to an ungrateful, rebellious child. She had taken her place again in a society which ignored the fact that she had ever had a daughter and pitied her, if it pitied her at all, only in discreet whispers and asides. The plain truth was that, by this time, Mrs. Frederick did not want Valancy to come back—did not want ever to see or hear of her again.

And now, of course, Valancy was here. With tragedy and disgrace and scandal trailing after her visibly.

“So I see,” said Mrs. Frederick. “May I ask why?”

“Because—I’m—not—going to die,” said Valancy huskily.

“God bless my soul!” said Uncle Benjamin. “Who said you were going to die?”

“I suppose,” said Cousin Stickles shrewishly—Cousin Stickles did not want Valancy back either—“I suppose you’ve found out he has another wife—as we’ve been sure all along.”

“No. I only wish he had,” said Valancy. She was not suffering particularly, but she was very tired. If only the explanations were all over and she were upstairs in her old, ugly room—alone. Just alone! The rattle of the beads on her mother’s sleeves, as they swung on the arms of the reed chair, almost drove her crazy. Nothing else was worrying her; but all at once it seemed that she simply could not endure that thin, insistent rattle.

“My home, as I told you, is always open to you,” said Mrs. Frederick stonily, “but I can never forgive you.”

Valancy gave a mirthless laugh.

“I’d care very little for that if I could only forgive myself,” she said.

“Come, come,” said Uncle Benjamin testily. But rather enjoying himself. He felt he had Valancy under his thumb again. “We’ve had enough of mystery. What has happened? Why have you left that fellow? No doubt there’s reason enough—but what particular reason is it?”

Valancy began to speak mechanically. She told her tale bluntly and barely.

“A year ago Dr. Trent told me I had angina pectoris and could not live long. I wanted to have some—life—before I died. That’s why I went away. Why I married Barney. And now I’ve found it is all a mistake. There is nothing wrong with my heart. I’ve got to live—and Barney only married me out of pity. So I have to leave him—free.”

“God bless me!” said Uncle Benjamin. Cousin Stickles began to cry.

“Valancy, if you’d only had confidence in your own mother——”

“Yes, yes, I know,” said Valancy impatiently. “What’s the use of going into that now? I can’t undo this year. God knows I wish I could. I’ve tricked Barney into marrying me—and he’s really Bernard Redfern. Dr. Redfern’s son, of Montreal. And his father wants him to go back to him.”

Uncle Benjamin made a queer sound. Cousin Stickles took her black-bordered handkerchief away from her eyes and stared at Valancy. A queer gleam suddenly shot into Mrs. Frederick’s stone-grey orbs.

“Dr. Redfern—not the Purple Pill man?” she said.

Valancy nodded. “He’s John Foster, too—the writer of those nature books.”

“But—but—” Mrs. Frederick was visibly agitated, though not over the thought that she was the mother-in-law of John Foster—“Dr. Redfern is a millionaire!”

Uncle Benjamin shut his mouth with a snap.

“Ten times over,” he said.

Valancy nodded.

“Yes. Barney left home years ago—because of—of some trouble—some—disappointment. Now he will likely go back. So you see—I had to come home. He doesn’t love me. I can’t hold him to a bond he was tricked into.”

Uncle Benjamin looked incredibly sly.

“Did he say so? Does he want to get rid of you?”

“No. I haven’t seen him since I found out. But I tell you—he only married me out of pity—because I asked him to—because he thought it would only be for a little while.”

Mrs. Frederick and Cousin Stickles both tried to speak, but Uncle Benjamin waved a hand at them and frowned portentously.

“Let me handle this,” wave and frown seemed to say. To Valancy:

“Well, well, dear, we’ll talk it all over later. You see, we don’t quite understand everything yet. As Cousin Stickles says, you should have confided in us before. Later on—I dare say we can find a way out of this.”

“You think Barney can easily get a divorce, don’t you?” said Valancy eagerly.

Uncle Benjamin silenced with another wave the exclamation of horror he knew was trembling on Mrs. Frederick’s lips.

“Trust to me, Valancy. Everything will arrange itself. Tell me this, Dossie. Have you been happy up back? Was Sn—Mr. Redfern good to you?”

“I have been very happy and Barney was very good to me,” said Valancy, as if reciting a lesson. She remembered when she studied grammar at school she had disliked the past and perfect tenses. They had always seemed so pathetic. “I have been”—it was all over and done with.

“Then don’t worry, little girl.” How amazingly paternal Uncle Benjamin was! “Your family will stand behind you. We’ll see what can be done.”

“Thank you,” said Valancy dully. Really, it was quite decent of Uncle Benjamin. “Can I go and lie down a little while? I’m—I’m—tired.”

“Of course you’re tired.” Uncle Benjamin patted her hand gently—very gently. “All worn out and nervous. Go and lie down, by all means. You’ll see things in quite a different light after you’ve had a good sleep.”

He held the door open. As she went through he whispered, “What is the best way to keep a man’s love?”

Valancy smiled wanly. But she had come back to the old life—the old shackles. “What?” she asked as meekly as of yore.

“Not to return it,” said Uncle Benjamin with a chuckle. He shut the door and rubbed his hands. Nodded and smiled mysteriously round the room.

“Poor little Doss!” he said pathetically.

“Do you really suppose that—Snaith—can actually be Dr. Redfern’s son?” gasped Mrs. Frederick.

“I see no reason for doubting it. She says Dr. Redfern has been there. Why, the man is rich as wedding-cake. Amelia, I’ve always believed there was more in Doss than most people thought. You kept her down too much—repressed her. She never had a chance to show what was in her. And now she’s landed a millionaire for a husband.”

“But—” hesitated Mrs. Frederick, “he—he—they told terrible tales about him.”

“All gossip and invention—all gossip and invention. It’s always been a mystery to me why people should be so ready to invent and circulate slanders about other people they know absolutely nothing about. I can’t understand why you paid so much attention to gossip and surmise. Just because he didn’t choose to mix up with everybody, people resented it. I was surprised to find what a decent fellow he seemed to be that time he came into my store with Valancy. I discounted all the yarns then and there.”

“But he was seen dead drunk in Port Lawrence once,” said Cousin Stickles. Doubtfully, yet as one very willing to be convinced to the contrary.

“Who saw him?” demanded Uncle Benjamin truculently. “Who saw him? Old Jemmy Strang said he saw him. I wouldn’t take old Jemmy Strang’s word on oath. He’s too drunk himself half the time to see straight. He said he saw him lying drunk on a bench in the Park. Pshaw! Redfern’s been asleep there. Don’t worry over that.”

“But his clothes—and that awful old car—” said Mrs. Frederick uncertainly.

“Eccentricities of genius,” declared Uncle Benjamin. “You heard Doss say he was John Foster. I’m not up in literature myself, but I heard a lecturer from Toronto say that John Foster’s books had put Canada on the literary map of the world.”

“I—suppose—we must forgive her,” yielded Mrs. Frederick.

“Forgive her!” Uncle Benjamin snorted. Really, Amelia was an incredibly stupid woman. No wonder poor Doss had gone sick and tired of living with her. “Well, yes, I think you’d better forgive her! The question is—will Snaith forgive us!”

“What if she persists in leaving him? You’ve no idea how stubborn she can be,” said Mrs. Frederick.

“Leave it all to me, Amelia. Leave it all to me. You women have muddled it enough. This whole affair has been bungled from start to finish. If you had put yourself to a little trouble years ago, Amelia, she would not have bolted over the traces as she did. Just let her alone—don’t worry her with advice or questions till she’s ready to talk. She’s evidently run away in a panic because she’s afraid he’d be angry with her for fooling him. Most extraordinary thing of Trent to tell her such a yarn! That’s what comes of going to strange doctors. Well, well, we mustn’t blame her too harshly, poor child. Redfern will come after her. If he doesn’t, I’ll hunt him up and talk to him as man to man. He may be a millionaire, but Valancy is a Stirling. He can’t repudiate her just because she was mistaken about her heart disease. Not likely he’ll want to. Doss is a little overstrung. Bless me, I must get in the habit of calling her Valancy. She isn’t a baby any longer. Now, remember, Amelia. Be very kind and sympathetic.”

It was something of a large order to expect Mrs. Frederick to be kind and sympathetic. But she did her best. When supper was ready she went up and asked Valancy if she wouldn’t like a cup of tea. Valancy, lying on her bed, declined. She just wanted to be left alone for a while. Mrs. Frederick left her alone. She did not even remind Valancy that her plight was the outcome of her own lack of daughterly respect and obedience. One could not—exactly—say things like that to the daughter-in-law of a millionaire.